


Free

by thehonestman (orphan_account)



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 03:17:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20575574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thehonestman
Summary: Jeonghan is every unstoppable force and Joshua is every movable object, ever.





	Free

These calls are usually not emergencies. For Joshua, a call from Jeonghan is a whisper, a prayer, a way of life but it’s not an emergency. At some point on the hour-long drive to where Jeonghan is, the thought strikes Joshua that he’s too old for this. Or maybe this is just getting old. Either way, a college graduate driving back to his hometown so frequently after having moved away nearly a year ago briefly registers in his mind as_ wrong_, but the pull back to those rural streets is so natural and so _right_ and he knows this. So he goes, and he gets Jeonghan.

Jeonghan is essentially where he had told Joshua that he was, except he had described himself as sitting in a field when it was really more like lying in a ditch. The field and ditch he had wound up in was one that was only known to those who really knew the town, cut off from any major roads and establishments, separated from a residential area by a fence and an adjacent row of trees. But Joshua still finds him, as he so often does, and bends down to help him up.

“Hi,” Jeonghan says sweetly.

“Hey,” Joshua replies, moving with no sense of agency as he briefly inspects Jeonghan’s appearance to find vomit and wetness on his shirt collar and front, a chalky residue on his chin as well as blood around the corners of his mouth. Carrying Jeonghan in his arms, he starts toward the car, letting him down about halfway there when he insists he can walk. In the light of the morning, Jeonghan looks extra pale.

“Always,” Joshua says when Jeonghan thanks him for coming to help him. “Let’s just clean up.”

At Jeonghan’s house, Joshua joins him in the shower and helps him clean his issues off of his face. At some point, Jeonghan is turned away from Joshua as Joshua massages shampoo into his hair, never missing an opportunity to caress his body, run his fingers down his spine and dig his thumbs into the dimples at the small of his back. Somehow, Joshua thinks, this feels like the last time he will see him like this. Somehow, he still can’t understand what Jeonghan is doing.

“I know you’re mad,” Jeonghan says suddenly. Joshua’s hands do not stop moving, and Jeonghan does not turn around.

"I’m not mad,” Joshua says. Jeonghan waits for him to continue. “But you’re going to have to stop this one day.”

“I will,” Jeonghan says. “I will.”

Out of the shower, Joshua pulls on Jeonghan’s clothes and lays down in his bed next to him. Joshua picks himself up and sits in Jeonghan’s lap and leans forward, chest to chest. Joshua kisses his neck heavily, breathes in the smell of him, then touches him some more.

Some time later, Joshua sits calmly in Jeonghan’s lap, both undressed, as Jeonghan apologizes sheepishly for the fact that they can’t tonight, it’s not him, he just can’t perform right now. Joshua knows it’s not him, and that it’s the everything else in his system. But he doesn’t say it, just leans forward and kisses Jeonghan’s neck once more, then settles his head on his chest.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I love you,” he says, and means it. Jeonghan grabs onto the small of Joshua’s back and cries.

* * *

In school, Joshua had learned about drug addiction. He had looked at the posters, read the statistics, tried on the drug goggles. He had sat in the auditoriums, anxiously listening to the guest speakers. The ones who got caught up in the wrong crowd of people because they lived in bad areas and just like that, they were heroin addicts living in communes on the streets until they overdosed and woke up in the hospital and suddenly made the decision to go to rehab. And now they’ve been sober for thirteen years and it hadn’t registered at the time that that was just as long as Joshua had even been alive, but it held some weight.

He had done all of this with Jeonghan by his side.

They had learned about the man in the alley who sells drugs and about the kid at the party who takes them because all of his friends are doing it. They had learned about the different kinds of drugs and what they did. And most importantly, they had learned about how easy it is to avoid them by just saying No.

* * *

To be alone, Joshua supposes, would be the only thing worse than this situation. Joshua is observant, and has been observant this whole time, and this house, these people, are no exception. The hesitance of the others in the room in their interactions with Joshua is not lost on him: he knows he is the add-on, the one piece that does not belong. But the only thing keeping him from getting out is, of course, Jeonghan.

If anything could surprise Joshua these days, it was certainly Jeonghan. At least that had been his initial thought when Jeonghan had called him and instead of asking him to come pick him up from an alleyway, he had asked him to come over next weekend to meet his friends, because he was going to be clean by then.

"I’d love to see it,” Joshua had said. Jeonghan had raved about how good it’ll be, how good he is, and Joshua will see that even with his friends doing _those kinds of things_ around him, he wouldn’t have to, he’d still be good.

And now, Joshua realizes, he takes back his earlier thought about Jeonghan being able to surprise him. The people sitting around him pose no direct threat, but they live in the indirect: what feels like a kind of underground mission to destroy Jeonghan and in turn, Joshua himself. The very people, he muses, that he had sat next to during those presentations in school. When Jeonghan is briefly away, he is momentarily vulnerable and Joshua does not have time to think of how that makes Jeonghan his security shield because vaguely, through the smoke, his eyes catch those of one of the guys sitting across from him who reaches his hand out for Joshua to shake as if he hadn’t been there the entire time.

“It’s been a while,” he says. His hands are bony like Jeonghan’s but not as pretty. The guys, he must admit, are not mean, but they’re the man in the alleyway and the kid at the party and the kind of people that just repel you, out of the natural fear of the unknown, of the uncontrollable. And truly, that’s what Jeonghan is: uncontrollable. Always has been. Joshua lives on Jeonghan’s schedule, not his boss’s nor his landlord’s nor his family’s. Jeonghan is every unstoppable force and Joshua is every movable object, ever.

“Yeah, man. It has.” But really, it hasn’t.

When Jeonghan comes back from the bathroom for the fifth time in less than 45 minutes, Joshua has had enough. Jeonghan sits down next to him, close enough to be normal considering he’s the add-on, but not close enough to give away what they truly are. In any case, Jeonghan sits open-legged, elbows on his knees and a beer in his hand and Joshua pinches his forearm hard enough to cause Jeonghan to cry out and whip his head over to him. Joshua’s eyes flick over to the guy who shook his hand, and they catch once again, but the guy looks away immediately.

Jeonghan asks why he pinched him, and Joshua just stares at him, letting Jeonghan take in the way his eyes trail down to his nose then back to his eyes. Jeonghan’s eyebrows unfurrow, forehead un-creases when he realizes he’s been found out.

“Okay,” he nods. “Okay.”

Alone is no easier. A room full of drug addicts, smoke, bottles, music: the excuses write themselves. There is no excuse now, but neither of them need one. Because even after all of Jeonghan’s friends leave, Joshua does not want to fight. Why water a dead flower.

At the doorway, he kisses Jeonghan deeply, pushes his lips against his but does not move them, like he’s trying to suck the life out of him. Maybe he is. That would make it all so much easier.

“I love you,” he says with earnest after he pulls away. Jeonghan just smiles a dazed, barely-awake smile at him.

“I love it when you say that.” And then Joshua is gone.

* * *

In college, Joshua had been without Jeonghan for the first time in his life. He visited the beach often: drove down in the afternoons with his friends and sat in the sand while he laughed at his friends jumping into the water in their underwear, no matter how cold the water. They had a confidence he had lost some time ago. When it got dark, they’d sit out there alone and play guitars and sing together and Joshua had thought that maybe he’s addicted to the beach in the same way Jeonghan is addicted. It must feel just as good, but the beach did not make him wake up covered in his own vomit and the music did not make him bleed from the corners of his lips so he thought maybe, he’s not addicted, just happy.

That is a very clear distinction that he wished Jeonghan could make for himself.

* * *

_There is a frightening, sickening ease--and a clear attraction--to the way in which things can be blown apart_, and Joshua supposes that’s the reason he keeps coming back. He won’t say that, of course. Jeonghan does not deserve that. When he says: “Why do you keep coming back here?” Joshua has no response, because he really does not have any reason to be here. He has it all, and Jeonghan has nothing. Or maybe its the other way around, because Jeonghan has Joshua, but Joshua does not have him.

Looking down at the water beneath their dangling feet, Jeonghan breathes out heavily then spits unceremoniously into the river. He nudges Joshua to get him to respond. And really, this is the first time Jeonghan has ever addressed this. If Joshua is the only one who cares about Jeonghan, really cares about him, he doesn’t think he can say it to his face. The light goes out of his eyes when Jeonghan finally picks his head up to look at him and there’s something grim in his expression.

“I come back here because I love you,” Joshua tells him, mostly out of habit. Something inside of him tells him he’s playing a little game with Jeonghan and with himself. He kind of enjoys the pain of not hearing Jeonghan say it back, and he’s just playing along to see if one time he might. Jeonghan just lays flat on his back on the bridge behind him and urges Joshua to do the same by guiding him by their connected hands. As his back hits the ground, he coughs.

"Do you really?” Jeonghan asks suddenly. Joshua shifts. “Do you really, actually love me? Do you think you could?”

“I tell you all the time that I do,” Joshua says. A long pause.

“Joshua.”

“Yes.”

“_Joshua,_” Jeonghan says and oh, this is different. He sits up in a hurry and before he can register anything, he vomits profusely over the edge of the bridge and into the water. Joshua sits up and sighs, because this means a lot. But he just rubs Jeonghan’s back and ignores the sound of the vomit hitting the water until he’s done. Eventually, Jeonghan stops and steadies his breathing. Oddly enough, he chuckles, and looks at Joshua through his teary eyes.

“Fuck,” he states. Joshua chuckles too. Sad clown.

“Yeah. _Fuck_.” Joshua reconnects their hands in a surprising moment of intimacy and kisses the back of Jeonghan’s hand. Settled once again, they look out at the horizon where the trees are backlit against the setting sun.

“Do you think,” Jeonghan begins roughly, then clears his throat and starts again. “Do you think I’ll ever get out of here?”

“You could have. You could have come to school with me,” Joshua tries, but knows it holds no truth. Because the man in the alley does not go to college and the kid at the party does not either. Jeonghan excuses his lack of thought, and entirely ignores what he says.

“What I mean is, do you think I’ll ever feel free?”

* * *

In therapy, Joshua is told he has hit a “critical point” in that he has clearly identified his problem, and that he needs to make a decision as to where to go from here. He wonders if Jeonghan will ever hit his critical point.

* * *

They say a routine life is nearly impossible to leave, even if you hate it. Breaking routine is not easy for Joshua, and Jeonghan showing up at his apartment unannounced is not part of the routine.

“Hi,” he greets breathlessly, allowing himself to be led into the storm that is about to ensue. Jeonghan frowns at the keys in Joshua’s hand.

“Hey. Were you on your way out?”

“I was . . . on my way to your house.” Jeonghan just blinks at this, clear, _sober_ eyes on display as Joshua opens the door all the way to let him inside.

Routine, as it goes, is not easy for Jeonghan to break either. And routine for him is _not_ being sober, and it is _not_ Joshua’s apartment, and it is _certainly_ not what he came here to do. Joshua sits down on the couch, and Jeonghan sits on the ottoman in front of him, his knees between Joshua’s spread legs.

“I haven’t been here in so long,” Jeonghan says.

“Is that the reason you came? To see my new cactus?” Jeonghan wants to laugh and reach out and touch him, but he can never seem to get what he wants.

Then, this: a speech -- an endless diatribe delivered from the mouth that bleeds to the ears that listen -- of change. Jeonghan proclaims his personal change to Joshua, wishing desperately to find the words that express what’s inside. They don’t exist, but he can come close. He’s changed, he’s changed, he swears he’s changed. And with the earnestness in his voice and the fact that he was actually sober and coherent enough to drive himself here in the first place, maybe Joshua could believe him. But Jeonghan’s hair is a little too dry, his legs a little too thin, his hands a little too shaky, and with the weight of the world on his shoulders, crushing his heart, but strengthening his resistance, Joshua can’t believe him.

Finally breaking down, letting out ugly sobs that no man wants witnessed, Jeonghan lunges forward into Joshua’s hold and I love you, I love you, I’m sorry I never said it, I was scared and I loved you all this time, I love you. His head is down and he grits his teeth with the pain it causes him, but collects himself momentarily as he picks his head up and leans up to Joshua’s mouth with renewed force and kiss me, kiss me, please, kiss me and tell me you love me. But Joshua just grabs his wrists, and pulls his head away from Jeonghan, and for a moment, Joshua feels an overwhelming sense of calm come over him. A kind of spiritual detachment that makes him think that none of this is real, and that none of it was real all along. And as he looks into Jeonghan’s clear eyes and over his smooth skin and at his moist lips, he thinks he looks like the image of the most pathetic kind of beauty there is. Jeonghan is beautiful, he is, the first time Joshua sees something real in him. But he does not say it. Because Jeonghan has hit his critical point too late, and there is no going back now.

Jeonghan, now collapsed into Joshua’s chest and suffocating under an endless stream of please, please, please, is lowered onto the couch on his back. And he feels the detachment too. Joshua gets up.

“I hope you can finally feel free, Jeonghan. Wherever you’re headed.”

* * *

In sleep, it seems, Jeonghan lives a perfect life, and he’s free to do all the things that during his waking life he could only watch.


End file.
